While at CES, Zotac got a change to show off some new motherboards, but aside from the ‘current’ market, so to speak, the motherboard manufacturer also presented some upcoming boards for the yet-to-be-released Ivy Bridge processors.
This board is based on Intel’s Z77 chipset, packed in a mini-ITX form factor and equipped with the LGA1155 socket, this board is aimed at overclockers. Zotac is no stranger to such a marketing section as it has already done similar products with the Z68 chipset.
Drawing power from a 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, the socket has been made with powder-coated LOTES Black to avoid any shrinking when subjected to subzero cooling. The processor is powered by an 8-phase VRM circuitry, equipped with controller full of features, Pulse-made inductors, driverMOSFETs (DrMOS) and High-C capacitors. A high-density heatsink cools the DrMOS chips, sharing some of its heat with the heatsink over the Z77 PCH through a heat pipe.
The CPU is connected to two DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3 memory as well as an expansion slot with PCI Express 3.0 x16.
Storage includes two SATA 6 Gbps, two SATA 3 Gbps and an mSATA slot, most likely to be 3 Gbps. As for the rear I/O ports, they’re composed of DVI and HDMI display connectivity, 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0. Also included is built-in wireless 802.11b/g/n. Also featured on this board will be a UEFI BIOS.
Source: TPU
